The invention is in the field of furniture construction, and more particularly pertains to furniture construction wherein nails, screws, or other metallic parts are not used.
The invention was inspired in the tropics, where the inventor found that virtually irrespective of the coating that was put on the metal fittings that came with furniture, the hinges, corner fittings, screws, nails, mounting brackets, and other metal parts very quickly began to rust and corrode. As a result, within six months to a year's time, the furniture would be discolored in spots, and old-looking. In the event that fasteners were used to hold the parts together, the furniture would become rickety, and in a short time unsafe for use.
There is a need for a simple construction whereby three-member orthogonal joints could be created without the use of screws or nails. Once this type of joint had been perfected, the joint could be replicated, to produce any box-shaped piece of furniture, such as tables, chests, bedframes, and chairs.
The instant invention fulfills the above stated need by providing a three-member orthogonal joint which is totally hidden from view when completed, and which requires no metallic fittings of any type. Essentially, the construction is based around a plurality of posts which have bores into the tops of diameter nearly as great as the post, but retaining sufficiently strong side walls around the bore to engage and hold the tongues of a plurality of horizontally extending beams. The tongues of these beams extend through cutaways in the side of the posts such that the tongues extend into the vertical bore in the top of the post.
Each tongue has a vertical detent bore which is used to securely lock the tongue inside the main post bore by means of a dowel pin driven down through the tongue so that the ends of the dowel pin butt sideways against the periphery of the main coaxial bore in the post. The beams may enter the main coaxial bore in numbers of one, two, three, or four in the preferred embodiment, and with modifications of the angular spacings of the cutaway portions, a cartwheel shape, or other imaginative configurations could be created.
Once the dowel pins have been driven through the tongues to secure them and their attached beams to the end of the post, a cap having a depending semi-circular plug (speaking now of the two-beam version) is press fitted down into the top of the large vertical bore so that the depending semi-cylindrical portion slips down into the semi-cylindrical cavity remaining in the main bore after the two tongues of orthogonally extending beams have been pegged into place.
Although the beams and posts could be provided with grooves, ledges, and other structure for confining and supporting glass, wood panels, and any other structure required to create tables, boxes, etc., a typical embodiment has been illustrated in which a coffee table top is positioned atop a four-leg, four-beam structure, with the planar table top being counter-bored at the four corners to provide seats for the upwardly extending, specially made caps utilized in the coffee table configuration.